Mock Trial 23-24 Pretrial Cases

Matter of Search Warrant Application for Geofence Location Data Stored at Google Concerning an Arson Investigation

 Facts: There was a series of arsons in Chicago and during the course of the investigation, investigators identified two vehicles that were seen at both locations 1 and 3. Because of this information, the government believed geofence data would help them locate the person who committed the arson. The government sought a warrant for geofence data from Google. The warrant specified the location and time for the geofence data. Google provided information about the location of cellphone users in six locations where the arsons occurred. 

Issue: Was the geofence warrant supported by probable cause and was it sufficiently particular and not overbroad? 

Holding: Yes. The court found that the geofence warrant satisfies the probable cause and particularity requirement of the 4th Amendment. The court found that the government had probable cause to believe that the geofence data would contain evidence of arsons. The warrant was not overbroad because the geographical area was small and limited in time.

Price vs. Superior Court of Riverside County

Facts: Defendant Ahmad Raheem Price was charged with first degree murder in the shooting death of the victim. In this case, the deputy sheriffs’ geofence described in the warrant covered the victim’s front yard, including the front porch where the shooting occurred, and the street in front of the house for the lengths of two houses in each direction. The timeframe of the geofence was a 22-minute period during which several 911 calls had been made. In the first stage, Google provided information showing five mobile devices in the geofence period. In the second stage, deputy sheriffs requested more information where those devices were before and after the 22-minute period. Two of the devices were shown to have left the geofence area to a new location. In the third stage, the deputy sheriffs requested de-anonymized information about those two  devices, one of which belonged to Price.  

Issue: Was the geofence warrant supported by probable cause, particular, and sufficiently narrow so as to comply with the Fourth Amendment, as applied to the states through the 14th Amendment? If not, did the police act in good faith in executing the warrant so as to render the warrant valid, despite its issues?  

Holding: Yes to both questions. The police had probable cause to believe that Price was using a cellphone on the day of the murder, given how common cellphones are in modern society. The warrant was also particularized because it was “narrowly tailored to minimize the potential for capturing location data for uninvolved individuals.” This does not mean that “the warrant . . . eliminate[d] every possibility that it will capture location data and identifying information of individuals for whom there is no probable cause to believe are suspects or witnesses to the crimes.” The court merely decided that the warrant was reasonable in size under the circumstances. At the time the warrant was issued, there were no published cases on the constitutionality of geofence warrants; the Court found that the police here acted in good faith in any case.

United States v. Leon

Facts: Relying on a tip from confidential information, police began an investigation into Defendant for selling narcotics. After police searched Defendant’s residence pursuant to a warrant and recovering narcotics, the District Court found that parts of the warrant were unsupported by probable cause. The prosecution objected to this suppression order, arguing that the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule should not apply where evidence is seized in reasonable, good faith reliance on a search warrant.

Issue: Is it an exception to the exclusionary rule if police conduct a search in good faith based on a search warrant that is later found to be invalid?  

Holding: Yes. In this case, the district court found the warrant to be facially deficient after the search had been completed. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed with the prosecution that the exclusionary rule can be modified in certain circumstances “without jeopardizing its ability to perform its intended functions.” The exclusionary rule itself is a remedy intended to deter police misconduct, not a separate right belonging to defendants. Where “law enforcement . . . acted in objective good faith or their transgressions have been minor,” the court must weigh the costs versus the benefits of applying the exclusionary rule. Where police act in good faith based on an invalidated search warrant, the costs of applying the exclusionary rule may be “allowing some guilty defendants to go free” and generating “disrespect for the law.” The benefits in that case, however, are “marginal or nonexistent.”

People v. Meza

Facts: Police used a geofence warrant to tie defendant Daniel Meza to the murder of Adbadalla Thabet after it was discovered that Meza’s cellphone had “ping’ed” in several of the same locations as Thabet on the day of the murder. The trial court refused to suppress the geofence evidence over Meza’s objections, and Meza was convicted of first-degree murder. 

Issue: Was the geofence warrant supported by probable cause, particular enough, and sufficiently narrow so as to comply with the Fourth Amendment, as applied to the states through the 14th Amendment? If not, did the police nonetheless act in good  faith in executing the warrant so as to render the search valid, despite its issues?  

Holding: No to the first question. Yes to the second question. The police had probable cause to believe that Meza was using a cellphone on the day of the murder, given how common cellphones are in modern society. While the warrant described the places searched and things to be seized with appropriate  particularity, police had too much discretion to broaden these categories by asking Google for more information without obtaining a second warrant, ultimately invalidating the warrant. Further, the geofence was too broad to be supported by probable cause for each customer “ping’ed” in the fence. The court was concerned about “the potential of sweeping up the location data of a substantial number of uninvolved persons.” This was especially so because “[t]he [geolocation datapoint] recorded by Google as the device's location is not a physical actual location of the device. It's just the estimate derived from the measurement that they took.” Finally, the court found that the police acted in good faith, even though they were working with scant judicial precedent and a brand-new investigative tool. Police conduct therefore fell within the good faith exception to the warrant requirement established in United States v. Leon and the Court affirmed Meza’s conviction.

United States v. Chatrie

Facts: After a bank robbery, the suspect exited the bank and went into an adjacent building west of the bank. After conducting an initial investigation, including interviewing eyewitnesses, the police detective was granted a geofence warrant that covered a circle with a 300-meter (or 984-foot) diameter, which spanned 17.5 acres of land. (The court noted that is about three-and-a-half times the size of a New York City block.) The geofence timeframe was one hour on the day of the robbery. In stage one, the warrant garnered mobile device data for 19 phones within the geofence. In stage two, the detective did not narrow the list of 19 users in his request for de anonymized data, and he expanded the timeframe to 30 minutes before and after the one-hour period. At the prompting of Google, the detective narrowed the list to nine users without explanation. In stage three, the detective requested more de-anonymized data for three of the nine devices, again without explanation. The detective finally requested additional information on one of the devices, which Google did not comply with because the three-step process had already been completed. The entire process led the detective to Okello Chatrie who was charged with two crimes related to the robbery.  

Issue: Was the geofence warrant supported by probable cause, particular, and sufficiently narrow so as to comply with the 4th Amendment, as applied to the states through the 14th Amendment? If not, did the police act in good faith in executing the warrant so as to render the warrant valid, despite its issues?  

Holding: No to the first question. Yes to the second question. The court found that police did not have probable cause as to every cellphone customer within the geofence, invalidating the warrant. This was partially due to Google’s own admission that “Google aims to accurately capture [only] roughly 68 percent of users” within a geofence. The warrant lacked particularized probable cause, which would have allowed him to seize only evidence of a particular crime. Police also had too much discretion in de-anonymizing customer accounts without obtaining a second warrant. The court then briefly addressed issues about the third party doctrine, but found that Chatrie could not have “in a meaningful sense . . . voluntarily assumed the risk of turning over a comprehensive dossier of his physical movements to law enforcement.” Finally, the court refused to suppress the geofence evidence because it found that the police acted in good faith, even though the warrant had defects (described above). Here, the detective had three prior geofence warrants approved, even though it was a novel technology, and had consulted with government attorneys before applying for this warrant. The warrant lacked particularity, but not so much that future improper police conduct would be deterred by applying the exclusionary rule. The court noted that “the legality of [geofence warrants] is unclear.” Even though the detective acted in good faith, “the Court nonetheless strongly cautions that this exception may not carry the day in the future . . . . If the Government is to continue to employ these [geofence] warrants, it must take care to establish particularized probable cause.”